Between now and it's release August 7th, Aimee Mann has her new CD, Lost in Space, available via streaming audio from her Web site. My initial listen leaves me quite happy, her last CD, Bachelor Number 2, is still one of my favorite listens. I'm not sure why you can only listen to one song at a time though, it is sort of annoying to have to keep clicking back over to the browser window and selecting the next song. Oh, and make sure you click around on the sky portion of the page, there are some bonus tracks hidden there which are also quite good.

I've been using O'Reilly's Safari service for the last few days on a trial basis(they offer a 14 day trial.) For someone like me, who buys a lot of computer books and is constantly referring to them on various projects, this service, which lets you subscribe to ten books online and read them from any internet connected machine, is ideal. It saves me from having to carry books to and from work every day, and the search feature means that I can see which books contain information relevant to my current problem or project. In the three days that I have been using the service, I have already done this at least ten times. The books available are not confined to the valuable O'Reilly books, but there are books from a bunch of technology publishing companies. At $14.99 a month for ten books, I think this service is a bargain, but I think they could do us all one better. I think the service would be even better if, when you buy a book from O'Reilly that is offered on Safari, you should get a serial number or unique indentifier that can be used to activate that book on Safari at no charge. That way I wouldn't be paying for books that I want paper copies of twice, I would get used to using the service so that I would want more books that I hadn't bought paper copies of. A win-win in my opinion, I wonder who at O'Reilly I should send an email to with this suggestion?

I thought long and hard about expressing this sentiment. I can't help it, I want to talk about this subject even if I feel I have to do it in the most general terms I can. At the same time, I don't want to come off as chiding the folks involved, I'm certainly no better or worse than any of them and often times I'm sure I'm worse. I am tired, very tired, of all of the noxious bickering that I've been seeing in the Weblog "community." It does a disservice to the medium, and it does a disservice to to the people involved. It also does a fantastic job of snuffing out valuable conversation. It's very disappointing to see people, all of whom I respect a great deal, trade in some of their credibility either for some credit, or to be "right," whatever that means.

I hear a lot of complaining/whining from the Mac camp since the keynote address last week. The restructure of iTools into the fee based .Mac service and the full price charge for the new version of the Operating System (Jaguar) have some people up in arms. I don't doubt that the reality of the situation is that Apple knew that these moves would not please a good chunk of folks. I think the reality here is just that times are not so great in the PC sector, and that companies need to squeeze out revenue wherever possible. Apple looks at possible revenue streams that do not include the purchase of hardware, and these two are pretty obvious choices. I think if they started charging for the iApps, they would have defeated the purpose of having those apps to begin with, and probably made people even more angry than they are now. Servers for something like iTools aren't cheap, and even though it really is not Apple's core business to be in a business like this, the opportunity was there. Most of their forays into territory like this (remember eWorld?) have ended in failure, so I would say "stay tuned". I think people should recognize that, in the climate that they are in, Apple needs to do whatever they can to sustain/create revenue, and this includes charging for something they probably wanted to keep free. Personally, I could care less about a mac.com email address, but I'm not the Mac-bigot that I once was. I'm mostly using Windows XP these days, and NT at the office for software reasons. Mac OS X is brilliant, I love it, and I wish that I could use it at the office, but it's not sooo much better than Windows XP. Well, just some thoughts I wanted to post last week but couldn't.

Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, the new Flaming Lips record, is a phenomenal work. I would call it the "American" OK Computer, but it is harsher to the taste than OK Computer, which makes perfect sense if you think about it and are familiar with the Lips. If you know me, you would know that I would not compare anything to OK Computer lightly, it is one of my favorite records of all time. I would also go so far as to say that this is the best new album I've heard so far this year. What is odd to me is that I've never really been a Flaming Lips fan before I heard this cd, although I will certainly be delving into their back catalog now. I went to Criminal Records (check out the domain cred there), my favorite music store here in the ATL, and Liam and other staff members told me to check it out. I ignored them, but two days later I heard them talking to someone else who was raving about the record. I finally broke down and listened to it, and bought it on the spot. It's a very layered cd, with plenty of of ear candy through my headphones, but it still maintains some sort of an organic vibe despite the presence of the layers of electronics.

I hope everyone stateside has enjoyed the long weekend as much as I did. While I didn't go out of town or execute any grandiose plans, I enjoyed the time off and put it to good use for both leisurely pursuits and some technical reading. I really enjoy the pace of Sunday. Despite the impending work week, Sunday is a comfort day of naps, cleaning, and shopping.

I hope everyone stateside has enjoyed the long weekend as much as I did. While I didn't go out of town or execute any grandiose plans, I enjoyed the time off and put it to good use for both leisurely pursuits and some technical reading. I really enjoy the pace of Sunday. Despite the impending work week, Sunday is a comfort day of naps, cleaning, and shopping.